This is one of my favorite topics and one people often ask me about, questions usually related to their dating life or deciding if they can trust someone. In these situations, intuition and common sense are usually just as telling as looking at someone’s natal chart. But when our heart, or pride, or money is involved judgment can be clouded. And even for the most level-headed person, a very good con-man, sob story, or a pesky transit or synastry aspect can blind you to what others can readily see. There are a lot of potential troublesome aspects I’m going to list below and I can assure you it is not an exhaustive list. So, always go with your gut/ intuition whether these aspects are present or not. And if you have any of the below aspects natally, keep in mind that you always have a choice to act out your challenging aspects at a higher or lower expression. Awareness is key and how you choose to use your ability to deceive is always within your control.
Natal Aspects and Placements
Pisces Ascendant/ Midheaven/ and/or Neptune in the 1st House:
These people have a lot of ideas about who they are projected onto them by others. And since this is the home of the personal mask (Ascendant/ 1st house) and public mask (Midheaven/ 10th house) when people find out the person underneath is different than what they imagined/ assumed, they can feel deceived. If the native is aware of their power to play chameleon and absorb the attitudes and projections of those around them, they can become very good con-artists, liars, manipulators, and actors to whatever ends they have in mind.
This is a very dangerous placement if other aspects in the chart indicate criminality or predatory behavior. If you hear a preponderance of information from other people about a person with this placement, but the native seems so different to you, believe the preponderance of information! You haven’t had time to see past the illusion but others have, and that is your glimpse into the true nature of the individual.
Pisces Sun/ Mercury/ and/or Mars:
Ah, Pisces. Well, to start, I can confidently say that in all my years of observation and research, these are the people most often asked about because they can be downright indecipherable. When operating at its highest, most spiritual level, people with these placements can be the truly enlightened and the kindest, most sacrificing and humble individuals you can imagine. As the culminating sign of the zodiac, Pisces is a mix of all the signs that have come before it, and they have a way of understanding people on a deep, intuitive-level that is undeniably a gift if used with love and wisdom.
But what happens when we take a purity of this kind and place it in the modern world? Pisces is one of the most suggestible, permeable, easily deceived, easily hurt and vulnerable placements you can have. And in the nature v. nurture argument, these are the people that do not fare well in a harsh environment – they grow thorns to protect themselves, learn to camouflage and conceal to protect their vulnerability, and will pretend to be a housecat when they really are a mountain lion, if it gets them the shelter they want. Having a nurturing, wholesome, and grounded early life where ethics and morals are practiced and emulated for a young Pisces is incredibly important. Unfortunately this is often not the case and many will have witnessed tragedy, violence, been subjected to abuse or put-downs in the home, or been violated well before adulthood, and thus begins the Pisces life of using escapism and deception as survival mechanisms.
Adapting to survive is not a negative thing, nor exclusive to Pisces, but what they often have a problem with is staying too long in their deceptions and losing themselves. And since they are constantly changing and absorbing their environment like sponges, many will give up on reverting to their “true self” altogether, and continue to live out lie after lie. Their natural vulnerability requires this adaptation, but it can be incredibly taxing on the mind and body (which is why Pisces Sun or people with strong or many Pisces placements sleep a lot) and they often deal with this through escapism, lying, manipulating people, or vanishing for long periods of time.
Hard and maybe soft aspects from Saturn can ground some of this energy and hold Pisces accountable and teach them to conduct themselves with more integrity. A stronger chart signature (Capricorn/Saturn, Sagittarius/Jupiter) may help override some of the above tendencies, but it is really by a matter of degrees. You have to carefully examine their character to know what kind of Pisces you are dealing with - one living at a high-vibration or a low one.
Mercury in hard aspect to Neptune: There is a distinct possibility that a native with this aspect has a difficult time being thought of as honest. Their speech and actions may often come across as being deceitful, whether or not this is the case. It may be a matter of having been accused of being dishonest from a young age that results in their forging an identity that doesn’t feel comfortable speaking the truth for fear of not being believed. Or it could be their understanding of information and details can be foggy or clouded in some way, so that their truth is different from others’ reality. That is all true, especially with the softer aspects. With the harder aspects you may be dealing with someone who lies because they know they can do so effectively and that it will help them achieve whatever their goal is.
This is a tricky aspect to have and encounter. It is best if the native makes a vow to hold themselves to a higher standard and never lie, even if it is painful. By doing so they can build up a reputation of honesty and good dealings that will hopefully precede them. They should not give in to the urge to deceive, even though they can and will do so with ease. Their deceptions only erode trust and break down the bonds of friendship, love, and community that they seek, no matter what the intent is behind it. Often their is no ill-will involved, and they lie to protect others' feelings, to protect their own feelings, to not have to divulge the whole truth which given the intuitive nature of Neptune/Pisces, they often know.
Sun in hard aspect to Neptune:
These people can lie about who they are, their achievements, and suffer possible delusions of grandeur. Or they can choose to operate from a higher plane and really work hard to display enormous compassion, creativity and speak from spiritual wisdom abilities inherent to this Neptune contact, but the harder path, because they will be challenged for doing so by the outside world.
There is softness and an otherworldliness that comes with this aspect that can be truly attractive and soothing to be around. Unfortunately, for a lot of men (and women) raised in Saturnian/ rigid or patriarchic homes, there may well be a lot of pressure put on you to grind this gentleness, creativity, and connection with the world outside this one, out of you. A few men I know with this aspect were sent away to military schools or boarding schools or other institutions where someone will “make men out of them.” What that really accomplishes is teaching them how to “act” like men, with the emphasis on what will become a chameleon-like ability to play the role that is being asked of them. This can make them easily fall into bad crowds, participate in stereotypical malignant masculine acts (hazing, drunken fights, belligerence, sexual misconduct) if that is the example that is being displayed around them and the role they are being asked to play to fit in. Many will be affected this way in youth and grow out of it as adults, but an environmental change is essential to allow that growth to take place.
Those with a trine or sextile from Neptune to their Sun may have an easier time retaining the positive Neptune qualities in spite of their environment, but those with the hard aspects (square, opposition) may come to challenge this energy within themselves. The harder aspects will attract to them people who will attempt to mock, suppress, or harm them due to their own prejudices and fear of enlightenment. This can severely hurt the ego of the Neptune/Sun native and make one take on different guises and personalities in order to adapt to whatever situation they find themselves in. Or they may use their gift to take advantage of others because they have mastered the art of disguise, in their appearance and their intent.
Neptune in the 3rd House: These natives are natural storytellers, have strong imaginations, are highly intuitive, and can bend the truth at times. They can often seem to be speaking through a fog or as if underwater and can have the burden of being misunderstood or misunderstanding what is happening around them. This is the reality from which they communicate, and therefore deception is not always intentional, it can be a matter of misapprehension and letting their imaginations run wild.
Coming in Part 2: Mars/Neptune aspects, Planets in the 12th House and Synastry aspects!